Salt
Children’s food shouldn’t have salt added - a child up to 3 years old shouldn’t have more than 1500mg sodium a day. When cooking for the family, be wary of ingredients like stock cubes and gravy as they are notoriously high in sodium, and make sure to check those food labels.
All Little Dish meals are classed as “low sodium”, which means that they have to contain less than 140mg of sodium per recipe. Some of our ingredients, such as cheese or breadcrumbs, contain very small levels of salt, but we work hard to source the ingredients with the very lowest levels possible, and never add any extra salt when we make our meals.
Sugar
Shop-bought children’s food often contains more sugar than you might think. That’s why it’s important to check the label and look out for added sugars in the ingredient list. Sugar is sometimes hidden under a variety of names such as barley malt syrup, high fructose corn syrup, fruit juice concentrate, dextrose, fructose, sucrose, glucose, crystalline sucrose and nectars.
We believe that children should learn how food tastes naturally and develop their palate by tasting foods without unnecessary sweeteners, whether natural or artificial. Whilst babies have an inherent preference for sweet, their palates develop through experience, which is why introducing a wide range of flavors is important. Foods with ‘no added sugar’ are often made with sweeteners, so keep an eye on those too.
The American Heart Association recommends that children aged 2 and under should have no added sugar in their diet at all. Naturally occurring sugars, those found in plain dairy foods, whole fruit and vegetables aren’t ‘added’ sugars so we don’t need to cut down on those.
Additives and preservatives
Food additives are ingredients added to foods for several reasons, for example to enhance flavor or to give them color. We do not use additives in our products as we only make our meals with ingredients that you would have in your store cupboard at home.
Preservatives keep food safe for longer to stop molds and bacteria growing on them. However, our meals do not need to have preservatives added to them because they are fresh, so your little one can experience the tastes and textures of real food.
Common food additives
Colors are used to make food more attractive. They can be natural in origin such as curcumin, a yellow extract of turmeric roots, or artificial such as tartrazine. There are six colors that are linked to hyperactivity in children and should be avoided: sunset yellow, tartrazine, carmoisine, ponceau 4R, allura red, and quinoline yellow.
Preservatives such as sodium benzoate and also been linked with hyperactivity and sulphur dioxide has links with asthma.
Sweeteners are used with or instead of sugar to make food taste sweet. Examples include aspartame, saccharin and sorbitol. Aspartame in particular has been linked to health issues.